2 Classes Down and 1 more to go

  So far I have finished with two classes for the term and the last one is over tomorrow evening. It will be a relief to have a little break from classes and be able to focus even more on my internship. I am meeting my Middle School mentor tomorrow and get to learn what it is like to teach in a Middle School. I found out I will either be teaching organic chemistry or nuclear reactions and most likely electricity, eek!! Not going to lie as a Biology major, even though I took chemistry classes, the idea of those topics scare me! So I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of my free time learning chemistry, hopefully some of it will be relearning, but I am sensing it will be like seeing it for the first time.
  I have registered for me classes for the winter time, most of which start in January except the seminar class. The seminar class starts the first week of December I believe which will run through the winter term, but will give us a class or two off over our internship breaks which will great. Also, the first week of December, we will meet to discuss our Projects. For the MAT program, students have the option to write a thesis paper, which is two terms in length, while the project is one term. I chose the Project because I do not have plans to go on for a PhD in Biology and the project is something that I can develop and actually hopefully implement in my classroom. The winter term is supposed to be the toughest, so let's hope I can grin and bear it and make it through with flying colors. One thing I would recommend if you have the opportunity, is to start taking classes before you start the summer program and doing your internship. I know some of my classmates did that and it means they only have to take two night classes a week or in the spring only have to take a seminar class. Basically the more  you can lighten your load when you are interning the better, so most of your focus is on your internship the less stressed you will feel and the better prepared you will be for your internship.
  This past Friday as I may have mentioned, we held the 2nd installment of our Urban Round Table Series. One of my classmates mentor's from Schenectady High School came to speak with us and did a wonderful job. We overall had a great turn out and hearing from this teacher was great! She was very animated and had some insightful information to share, so I think it was a success. Just booked the speaker for our third installment, so we are keeping the momentum which is great.
  Tomorrow, back to Troy, the 1st Quarter grades are due, so I have been calculating grades and trying to give my students an opportunity to get some points back by handing in late homework for half credit,which created more work for myself as the late assignments trickled in, but it is the 1st Quarter and I had a little leeway to do so. I did explain today that this will not continue this quarter. I also moved their seats today, to mix things up. As you can imagine there were a lot of groans and complaints, but I explained we were starting over and in the real world we may not like everyone we work with, but we have to find a way to get along and get through, so they need to start that adjustment.
  Well I am going to get back to work study. I will check back in again soon!